


A little bit of heaven but a little bit of hell

by JuliaBaggins



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Julia getting poetic about snow, London 1895, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 04:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19165753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/pseuds/JuliaBaggins
Summary: In December 1895, Aziraphale and Crowley meet at a party in London. The demon gets hurt, and it's up to his angel to take care of him...





	A little bit of heaven but a little bit of hell

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a story about those characters, and this was just a random idea, but somehow I liked it, and I hope it works 😊

On an early December evening in the year of the Lord 1895, a dust particle was floating through the air closer to the stars than it ever had been before, thinking of nothing and everything, until suddenly, it felt a sensation. An unfamiliar sensation, and had this particular dust particle possessed a broader knowledge of vocabulary, it might have called what it experienced _cold_. The new feeling reached the dust particle until it’s very core, and then, something embraced it. And the dust particle felt itself changing. It grew, morphed into something else, something magnificent. _Beautiful_ , it might have been called, had there been someone to call it anything. But as it was, there wasn’t. The former dust particle was alone, and it didn’t mind. Because it had become a snowflake, and this alone was an experience so much more fascinating than anything the dust particle ever could have imagined to happen. The newly born snowflake wasn’t mindlessly floating anymore, it was dancing, a little to this side, a little to that, slowly spiraling, and thereby flowing down, down, _down_. 

The snowflake left the thick winter clouds behind itself, and for a split moment, it was confused. Or as confused as a former dust particle now snowflake could get. Because it had been sure to have left the stars behind itself, to maybe never return, but now, it seemed as if it was flying towards just those. What seemed to be a star filled sky quickly coming closer wasn’t one though, no, quite the opposite. It was a city, the biggest one to be found anywhere around, and what the dust particle had assumed to be a myriad of stars actually were the hundreds of lights illuminating the city, following the streets meandering throughout it on both sides of a large river; a glistening ribbon of deep black velvet. Quickly, the snowflake was coming closer, single streetlamps now easier to make out, people rushing through the streets becoming visible between them, and before it quite knew what was happening, the snowflake’s journey was over. And it landed in the hair of an angel.

 

Aziraphale didn’t notice the single snowflake finding a new home in his light hair, but he enjoyed watching the dance that the crystals were performing on their way down from the dark winter clouds, a soft smile on his face. In passing by, he noticed a blonde little girl shivering in the winter winds, and quickly sent her some warmth, as well as a few coins for her pockets and, most importantly, a blessing. If the angel’s wish worked, and they usually did, the girl never would have to shiver like this, especially not from loneliness – she’d live her whole life being _loved_ , and while Aziraphale’s steps took him closer to the house that was his destination for the evening, his thoughts still were focused on the little girl.

After exchanging some greetings with the servant opening the door for him and shrugging out of his warm coat, Aziraphale joined the people already gathered in the salon for an elegant pre-Christmas gathering, and he wasn’t yet through his second glass of exquisite Italian wine when he spotted a familiar face.

“Crowley”, Aziraphale greeted, standing next to the demon who answered him with a sincere smile trying to disguise itself as a smirk.

“Angel”, he tilted his head in a nod, and Aziraphale noticed how the light of the flickering candles displayed around the walls broke itself in Crowley’s dark glasses. 

“I hadn’t expected to see you here my dear, not with this weather outside”, Aziraphale mused, and the flash of displeasure in Crowley’s face was enough to confirm the angel in his suspicion – they had known each other long enough for him to know how hard the cold sometimes became to handle for the demon, and how much he disliked facing it without being forced to. 

(The fact that no matter how freezing it got, Crowley still preferred fashionable looks in his clothes to the ability of providing him with warmth didn’t necessarily help, but Aziraphale had tried bringing this topic up multiple times throughout the centuries, and had at some point recognized it as a lost battle.)

“I certainly didn’t come here just for the wine”, Crowley remarked, knowing full well that the angel hadn’t either.

“Business it then is for you too?”

“Oh yes. There’s a traveler who is said to arrive here later, and to meet someone whose life he will change for the better, and vice versa.”

“And you’re supposed to prevent them from meeting?”, Aziraphale asked after a sip from his wine.

“No, quite the opposite. Downstairs sent the task of making sure that they meet, to make sure that this man’s soul doesn’t go to heaven.”

“That doesn’t sound like it makes too much sense, does it? How can him experiencing good things prevent him from going to heaven after his death?”

Crowley shrugged. “No idea. And since you’re here too, I’d assume this man might end up without any heavenly or hellish intervention, don’t you think so?”

“Maybe he indeed should”, Aziraphale nodded along, “I didn’t understand from the moment of getting this memo how preventing him from meeting the love of his life should do heaven any good, and I think us just happening to let him make his own decision might be a wise idea.”

“Glad we agree there, angel”, Crowley smiled, and Aziraphale couldn’t resist smiling back, just a little.

 

Aziraphale was glad to have decided not to go through with an assignment that had sounded so weird from the start, and when Crowley nodded towards the buffet, he happily followed. The demon himself didn’t consume any food, but handed him a pastry Aziraphale hadn’t tried yet, and just when he was about to thank his.. to thank Crowley, they were joined by a young lady. Crowley gently touched the satin-glove covered hand she offered him with his lips, after that flashing her a rather charming smile, and the lady seemed to not have noticed Aziraphale’s presence at all. 

In the corner of his eye, Crowley noticed the angel by his side lightly shaking his head, and just when amusement about that started to blossom in his mind, Crowley paused. His eyesight seemed to flicker, his whole vision blacking out for a split second, and once he was able to see again, even if still a little blurry, he was looking into a pair of deeply worried blue eyes.

“Crowley? What is happening my dear?”, and Crowley tried to answer, once his brain that seemed to be a little slow suddenly had been able to make out the words, but he couldn’t, even though he tried, he _couldn’t_.

Neither the angel nor the demon noticed the woman leaving the scene, a look somewhere close to confusion on her attractive face, maybe with a hint of the fear of catching a fatal disease. While she walked away, having lost interest in the handsome dark-haired man whose face colour started to turn an unhealthy grey now, Aziraphale reached out, panicked, placed a hand he hoped to be comforting on the demon’s shoulder.

“Crowley?”, Aziraphale whispered, panic slipping into his voice, and the demon hated to see such fear in those angelic blue eyes.

“I can-“, Crowley tried, his voice way raspier than usual, “Can’t breathe”, and the pain shining from those words was a clear sign for Aziraphale about the graveness of the situation, an even clearer one than everything before.

 

Crowley had gotten used to the human habit of breathing during his years on earth, even if he wouldn’t have needed to, but now, it felt like he _couldn’t_. Not as in being suddenly unable to perform a task that wasn’t necessary from the start, no, this reached way deeper. Crowley felt like a human to whom breathing would have been fundamental and who now suddenly was robbed of the opportunity to do so. He felt as if he was drowning, his throat having closed up, his insides yearning for a life essence that didn’t reach him, and for the first moment in a very, _very_ long time, Crowley felt himself panicking. There was the vague impression of being moved, a distant feeling of safety, of getting protected somehow; a warm touch grounding him while the pain, the panic, the yearning for something he didn’t know what to be tried to tear him apart. And then, after a last glance into an icy blue that had become associated with warmth such a long time ago, everything went black for Crowley…

 

There was something.. soft. He didn’t know where he was, or when, or even who, but there was a soft sensation, and the vague impression of being safe. He groaned, greedily sucked in the air in shaky breaths, and after a moment, or a month, he couldn’t be sure, he opened his eyes. Slowly, with a lot of effort, and then blinked against a too bright light. And somewhere, there was a voice, a voice ringing a bell through the clouds wavering everywhere in his mind.

“Crowley? Can you hear me my dear?”, and yes, he indeed knew that voice. And this name – Crowley, yes, that was him. 

“Hmm”, he answered eloquently, his vision finally sharpening despite the brightness. That, as it turned out, was nothing but a little lamp at the nightstand of an otherwise dark room.

“How are you feeling?”

Crowley shrugged in response, and then smiled, once he could clearly make out Aziraphale’s face – with his vision, his memories had come back too, and he knew whom those blue eyes, this pleasant voice, and this worried face belonged to. 

“I don’t know”, Crowley said, and tried to sit up, but quickly fell back against the soft pillows he had been resting on with a groan.

Aziraphale was fast to help the demon with steady hands and support his back with another pillow, so he at least could partly sit up, and Crowley flashed him a grateful smile. And for the first time in a week, the angel felt some of the tension leaving his body that had held him in an icy grip ever since this fateful party.

“What happened?”, the demon asked, and with a soft sigh, the angel sat down at the edge of the bed, looking into snake-like eyes.

“We’ve been at a party, both to meddle with the love life of some young man, and right after agreeing that it would be best to leave this to him, your ever-charming self decided to give this young lady a hand-kiss. And then you.. lost consciousness”, Aziraphale explained, stumbling over the last words.

And Crowley did remember it. The terrible feeling of suffocating, the panic in his friend’s eyes, the blackness. The missing knowledge if he’d wake up again from whatever _this_ has been. 

“It hurt”, Crowley admitted, and though it was just a whisper, so low that Aziraphale couldn’t be sure if the demon had intended him to hear the words, they cut right through his heart.

“I know”, and Aziraphale placed a gentle hand in Crowley’s messy hair, running his fingers through it in a slow, comforting pace.

Crowley gave the angel the time he needed to gather his thoughts, and once his friend spoke again, a surprised gasp left his lips.

 

“I can’t imagine how much it must have hurt”, Aziraphale whispered, his hand coming to a rest in Crowley’s hair, “It was holy water.”

“It was _what?!_ ”, Crowley spluttered, sitting up a little straighter in the bed while his eyes widened. He must have misheard, this couldn’t have been.. but then again, the expression in Aziraphale’s face told him that it had been exactly what he thought to have heard. Though then, he had no idea how in the name of heaven, hell and everything in between he still was here.

Aziraphale moved his hand towards the blanket, where Crowley’s own pale fingers rested, and, after a blink of hesitation, started to carefully stroke his friend's fingers, and then intertwined them with his own. 

“You weren’t exposed to it directly, thank- whomever responsible. It took me a moment, but I knew that something severe must have gotten to you, and later, after you were.. better”, and the way the angel’s voice stocked before the word told Crowley that it must have looked not too well for him for at least a while, “I managed to find out what happened. The lady, the one whose hand you kissed, had been visiting a church earlier that day, and in there, dipped her fingers into holy water to make the sign of the cross. She washed her hands before the party, but a hint of holiness must have stayed, and I don’t want to think-, I don’t know what would have happened had she not been wearing those gloves. As it was, you seemingly only inhaled a hint of what was left of it, and this was enough to hurt you rather badly. Had she taken them off, or-“

“But she didn’t”, Crowley interrupted the angel’s voice, squeezing his hand for a moment, “She didn’t take the gloves off, and I’m fine, I really am. Thanks to you.”

“Did you just thank me?”, Aziraphale asked, and Crowley was glad about the hint of humor in his voice.

“I didn’t. When would a demon ever have a reason to thank an angel?”

“That sounds nearly as unlikely as a demon and an angel just talking to each other, nearly as if they were friends”, the angel allowed himself to say, and Crowley smiled.

And for a moment, Crowley was tempted to say _Or as unlikely as an angel holding the hand of a demon_ , but then he decided against it. There might come a time to talk about _this_ , about the way those fingers felt in his, about these intense waves of protectiveness, of safety, of _home_ he had felt earlier, but it could wait. Until tomorrow, next week, next year. Or for a hundred years, it was not as if they were running out of time. If Crowley would be the one making the decisions, Aziraphale and him would have an eternity together.

 

“What happened to him?”, Crowley asked after a moment, and Aziraphale looked up from where his blue eyes had been fixed on the blanket, his thoughts oh so far away.

“Sorry, to whom, my dear?”

The endearment wasn’t new coming from the angel’s lips, but on this day, there somehow was something to it that caused a pleasant tingling in Crowley’s fingers, and caused him to need a moment until he answered.

“The man for whom we originally were at this party.”

“Oh, I don’t quite know all that happened to him. But I once had a quick look, and saw him and his special person walking through Hyde Park side by side, laughing together. It seems they found each other, not minding what your people or mine might have planned.” 

“That’s good”, Crowley said, and then, after a glance into Aziraphale’s eyes and quickly away again, added: “Maybe it just is like this sometimes, that two people belong together. No matter which difficulties they might have to face.”

“Indeed, maybe it is like this”, the angel agreed, and slowly moved his thumb over the soft skin at the back of Crowley’s hand, “You should sleep some more, old friend.”

Crowley rolled his snake-like eyes as good as possible, but still listened, and laid back with the help of his friend, closing his eyes with an exhausted sigh as soon as his head hit the pillow.

 

“Thank you, angel”, Crowley whispered, and then he felt something soft wrapping around him, something even warmer than the most comfortable of hotel blankets. With an expression of peace on his face, he snuggled a little closer into the gentle, pristinely white feathers of an angel wing, and then fell asleep.

When Aziraphale leaned a little closer to his sleeping friend to place the hint of a kiss onto his forehead, a tiny dust particle flew out of his hair, ready to go onto the next adventure.

And while more and more snowflakes fell down from a dark sky above London, an angel and a demon slept cuddled up close to each other, both feeling more at home than both heaven or hell ever had offered them…

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this little thing I wrote please do leave me a comment! ❤️
> 
> Oh, and if the blonde little girl might have felt familiar to you, hi friend, and yes, that was little Betty, one of my very fave oc's ☺️


End file.
